Divided By Duty
by The Madmadam
Summary: "What are you talking about? Love? She was always good to you, wasn't she?" "I don't even remember anymore!" Jamila blurted before she saw the screeching crash she'd just sailed into. Tears, unbidden, filled her eyes. Spoilers for TMB.


**Moderate TMB spoilers (no culprit reveal).**

Everything was set on the eve of her eighteenth birthday. Jamila picked up a list she must have read over a hundred times, running her fingers over the back of it. There were bumps from where she attacked the paper with names in her neat little scrawl. At six she and Rowida and a few more friends would head out to the Arkadia Mall to buy new clothes with her last few months' savings from a part-time job of typing things up at school.

It wouldn't be the first time she went out with friends. Because Baba was so busy with work, she found herself becoming more independent by the day. Breaking free.

Jamila smiled to herself.

Now she was grown. Someday soon she would go to University, maybe even outside Cairo, outside Egypt. Just a little more money for that. Maybe she'd have enough to apply next year. And then she'd return, learned, radiant. She'd find more people, other people, him with whom she could spend a few minutes in a room, and from there many, many years. They'd meet; they'd marry.

Her father wasn't home, which wasn't out of the norm. He had been busy with work as long as she could remember. Now he was even busier. Most of the time they lived comfortably. But right now money was tight. They'd never talked about University for Jamila, and Jamila knew that meant that he couldn't help her with it.

After Jamila's mother died in a car accident eight years ago, her father had stopped making any attempt at an upbringing. He was busy, and lately he was having trouble supporting them both.

In fact, this was probably a day he was looking forward to for a long time. The day she'd leave would soon come.

Jamila planned to get out soon. Rowida thought she was crazy. She, like most of Jamila's friends, would stay with her family through college until marriage. That was what was expected.

But here, living with a father who never came home, Jamila knew she would never know about love. After years of a college education in another place and meeting new people, she'd learn.

Maybe neither of her parents ever said anything about it, to her or each other, but Jamila knew it existed. She dreamed about it. And Jaya's secret relationship with the neighborhood boy may not have been love, but it was certainly something!

She giggled, twirling each of her costume rings around her fingers. At times she berated herself for acting so young. But then she remembered she needed it every so often. Growing up was difficult. That's what everybody said.

But that didn't scare her now. Not that she was an adult and _so_ close to leaving…

Going to her closet, Jamila picked out a colorful orange hijab that went with her tunic. It was the nicest thing she had, and she'd never worn it—she'd bought it a few months ago and reserved it for today.

After checking her appearance, Jamila peered out of her room to the clock in the hall.

4 P.M. She frowned impatiently.

"What to do in the meantime?" she was forced to ask herself.

As if answering her, the book on her bed entered her vision.

Jamila grabbed it. Stepping into the kitchen, she went immediately to the table to sit. She winced when her knee hit one of the legs. Looking up to find her bearings, she saw that a piece of paper awaited her on top. She knew she hadn't left it there, and Baba never left scraps lying around. Puzzled, she found the back of the chair and sat down with the paper.

_Daughter_—it began. The word pounced on her heart. Guardedly Jamila continued:

_I now know you to be a daughter, not a son. This is my fault. I hoped against hope for a son, and dreaded that this should be the case. Yet even further in my heart that I dare not admit, in my mind or aloud, I am glad. I want the empathy of a daughter that does not come with the hubris of a son, for however short of a time it will last. Yet I am sorry you are a girl, sorry that I have to write this letter. I am sorry that someday you will make me proud and will have given my motherhood purpose._

_For eighteen years I have told you nothing. For three thousand years a queen has been lost, and her husband has been anxious. In that time, the servants of Ramses II, the husband, have been searching for Nefertari, the wife, to return to his side. These are the Daughters of Nefertari. A few of these women led long, happy lives, but not many of them. I was one of them, and now you are._

_I don't know what you will have been told about my death, but it is false. You were to receive this letter no sooner than your eighteenth birthday; you were not to know of my part in the Order before then._

_Know this: it was not an accident_.

_I wish I had known you better, but by necessity I did not. By necessity I found a companion, I married, I had a child and completed my obligation to the Order. By necessity I write this letter and pass this task on to you. By necessity I have made my attempt, and by necessity I have died._

_You too must die, if it is ordained. You must put all of your strength and resources into this search; you must devote your life to it. You must tell no one outside of the Order. One day you will marry; one day you will have a child, maybe a little girl. This you must pass on to her. In this type of search, you have no friends or allies. He whom you marry will never know. Your sons, should you ever have them, will never know._

_The more I write, the more difficult this will be for you. I leave you with this task, and may Allah be your protector._

_Akila_

All of her froze. She was sure her heart had stopped. "Know this: it was not an accident"—the phrase wouldn't leave her, echoing through her mind. Her head throbbed with the words, the color of the paper, a face she hadn't seen in fourteen years, a name that had stopped turning with her world. It had seemed so alien when she read it, that it seemed like it belonged to another family, another life.

She read the letter again. Her hands shook holding it.

Not once had her mother said she loved her.

And this necessity…

No. This wasn't necessity.

It wasn't even anywhere near _fair_.

And what wasn't fair, she'd promised herself she wouldn't touch.

Her mother's accident—or so-called accident, she corrected—had taught her that.

And now…

She didn't have to do this. It wasn't fair to ask.

Her mother should not have pulled her to one direction in one circumstance and nearly the exact opposite in just a few years, Jamila thought with anger. Now she would no longer listen. She crumpled the letter and leaned her forehead into her fist.

When she was ten, they told her to move on.

And now she had.

This was her own life. She could not be forever haunted with mildewy memories of a tall, beautiful woman with whom she'd revive primeval Quran passages every night across the kitchen table.

Her mother was dead. Her main task—her _only_ task—had been to move on.

And clearly a girl—no, a woman—who would not bear the risk of death for something she didn't do was a healthy individual. Someone who had moved on completely from any past losses.

With that she knew she'd decided, and she carefully smoothed out her mother's letter. Right now she was too rigidly angry to cry, but soon she suspected she wouldn't be.

A creak sounded from a floorboard a few feet in front of her.

Puzzled, Jamila looked up.

Three strangers appeared from the hall, each of them wearing dark kaftans and hijabi. Blast. She must've forgotten to lock the door today. Jamila's eyes gravitated immediately to the woman on the right, who must've been only a few years older than she was. The woman next to her had the beginnings of crow's feet, likely in her thirties, and the woman on the left had bronzed, tough skin lined with rivers of wrinkles. None of them left shadows. Instead they huddled together within the shadow of the stove.

"Turn down the blinds," the eldest one ordered.

Jamila didn't move. "Who are you?" she asked defiantly.

"We are Daughters of Nefertari," the woman in the middle answered softly.

"Nefertari?" Jamila squinted. "The queen? Do be serious." She remembered the name from the letter, but that needn't have prevented her from standing her ground. Then her expression changed. "Wait. Is this letter…?"

They nodded. "Our organization includes many descendents of the Lost Queen. Now you, too."

She gaped at them. "Come again?"

"We will tell you," the oldest woman said, "but you first must promise not to say a word of this until our task is completed."

"I don't care to hear," Jamila replied, repeating what her father said when he became angry with business associates. "Please go."

"We can't go until we've said what we must."

Jamila fought the temptation to sigh. She'd already been given enough to process tonight. She didn't want them around for forever and a half. "Fine," she replied, going to the window to draw the blinds. "I promise. Now what is this?" The women promptly moved and sat at the table. Scowling at their rude behavior, Jamila started to speak.

"We do not wish to impose or request your hospitality," the middle woman said quickly.

Placing her hands on her hips, Jamila narrowed her eyes at them. "Then why are you still here?" she demanded. "If you see you are not wanted, why don't you leave?"

"We have to talk to you."

"About the letter I've just read about my mother? I should hope so," she spat. "Then again, I'd like to spend the rest of my life forgetting about it."

Ignoring the outburst, the oldest woman began to speak. "There is a debt."

"I have never been in debt in my life," Jamila replied quickly.

"For all the time our task remains incomplete, we are in debt. We have inherited the burden of Ramses. In return for his reunion with Nefertari, he blessed one beloved family of servants and assigned them the task of building a temple for Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens. Once they were done, he had them each paid to live comfortably in freedom for the remainder of their lives. Each one of them died free. The husbands, tasked with hiding Nefertari, each additionally died at peace, their temple complete. The wives, tasked with keeping the secret, died bequeathing the care of Nefertari to their offspring."

Jamila's eyes glittered with anger. She would have loved nothing better than to stop listening, but through some force that she was sure wasn't her own, she heard and understood every word.

"The wives were warned by Ramses to tell only their daughters, as their sons' hubris compelled them to boast. The men could not be silent on such a monumental task as this, not with every high position in the province wanting their qualifications. Ramses then called the women, endearingly, the Daughters of Nefertari. Because they were binding themselves to tasks that lasted long past their lifetimes, they were able to do more for the queen than her actual daughters did."

Jamila hated to listen. Even when she turned away and looked hard at dust on the windowsill, the words kept flowing through her ears to her frozen brain.

"It is from that that the Order takes its name. We are the Daughters of Nefertari, each possessing the burden we were born with."

"That's all well and good—" Jamila began, ignoring the affronted stares of the women in response to the interruption. At this point she didn't care about being rude.

"You are bound," the woman continued, ignoring her. "This was passed on to you—"

"For something I didn't do. I do not accept responsibility for anyone's actions but my own."

"Please listen—"

"This is something for which I am not responsible," Jamila repeated, "and I will not take the punishment."

"It isn't punishment, it's—"

"Yes it is," Jamila cut across. "Anything that kills the mother of ten-year-old girls is punishment. As you know, I've just turned eighteen. I have my own life." She pivoted her head slowly from the oldest woman to the others with a prominent glare.

"No," the oldest continued. "Your life isn't yours. Should you refuse us, you refuse Nefertari, and you will fall prey to her curse."

Despite wanting to scoff it off, a part of Jamila got trapped in that warning. She'd been to the desert and seen a lot of things that were difficult to explain. She was not free to be dismissive. Knowing that these women weren't in any hurry to hear her response, she took the time to think. "Living an unfree life is worse than any curse," she said finally. "I will not take someone else's burden. Not for anyone."

"Not even your late mother?" the middle woman asked with a tender air.

Jamila blinked. Oh, how she hated them. "She didn't do anything," She said as soon as she was able to pry her tight jaw open to speak. "She got looped into this somehow, and I won't."

"You don't have a choice," the youngest said barely audibly.

Jamila continued to channel her anger into greater articulateness, as she'd learned from her father. "You'd be ill advised to threaten me," she said. "If you are, you may leave at once. I will not tolerate any attempt at manipulation."

"We don't wish to threaten you," said the middle of them, choosing her words more carefully.

"You've given me much to consider." Jamila's eyes flashed. "I must now ask you to leave."

"We can't leave without talking to you. Orders."

"You _have_ talked to me," Jamila reminded.

They all lowered their eyes.

In so many words, they must have been told to stay until they'd received her word she'd help.

The letter alone would wreck her for another five years at least. Jamila's eyes closed firmly. She would not force herself through the guilt again, the notion that being flippant with her mother shortly before her accident made it Jamila's fault. Never again would she take the blow for an evil she did not commit.

Jamila's hands balled into fists. "I won't do it!" she said, her eyes snapping open. "Why should I? My mother didn't love me. I have no love for Nefertari, who killed her."

The women's mouths fell ajar.

But Jamila pushed on, determined to have her say. "I have no obligation to you. Maybe my mother did, but she didn't love me, so I don't."

The women look more shocked at this than at Jamila's opposition. "What are you talking about? Love? She was always good to you, wasn't she?"

"I don't even remember anymore!" Jamila blurted before she saw the screeching crash she'd just sailed into. Tears, unbidden, filled her eyes. She blinked them back. "But a dying letter would be a great place to put it, wouldn't it? That she maybe loved me? And it isn't there!"

They were jarred at this admission. Jamila's anger at forgetting reflected back to her from their eyes.

She slapped the letter on the table. "See? It isn't there!" she said, nearly gasping. Jamila didn't dare blink. In all her life she never remembered working harder trying not to cry.

Each of the three women averted her eyes.

"Jamila, she wrote that letter before she even met you. As soon as she found out she was pregnant, she wrote it. She didn't have much of a chance to love you then."

"Yeah, well, this isn't enough. She left too little behind." Jamila's voice rose. "It's cruel what you do, coming here after all these years."

"We don't like opening closed wounds, but we haven't a choice. We need you."

Her head jolted up. "No you don't." Her voice broke. "You need to leave me alone."

The three exchanged glances. The oldest woman pulled something from her bag. "Read this," she ordered.

Shooting her a dirty glare, Jamila snatched the paper out of her hand. It was another note, written in the same stationary as the one she'd just found.

It said, "My husband has given me firmness. My son has given me steadiness. My daughter has given me life."

Stunned, Jamila tried in vain to tear her eyes away.

"Your mother wrote that a year before the... accident," the oldest continued slowly.

Jamila still couldn't believe it. She, Jamila, had been her final thought in writing.

And the son…

That's right, Jamila remembered slowly. Her mother had been pregnant when she…

Jamila attempted to sever her thoughts by blinking her eyes, but to no avail.

Her brother.

_Akhuya_.

They'd all just learned about the pregnancy a few days before. Jamila had still been getting used to the idea. Somehow all her memory from the whole horrid affair had shifted to her mother. The one who'd lived before she died.

Again she refused to blink, remembering, how she had wanted a little brother. She thought he'd probably be crazy, and he'd probably drive her crazy.

She'd never gotten to find out.

She'd never get to find out, nor did she imagine that she'd even get close. She knew even now that one could not treat sons as brothers; parents must establish authority. And friendships with a boy was out of the question—at least until she got out of Egypt.

If she got out.

"I'll do it." Jamila's throat clenched hard on the words. She refused to bow her head. "But I promise you all, whoever you are, that I will not die."

The women smiled sadly. They didn't believe her. The only conviction they saw ended in corpses.

Jamila could read them. Her face hardened. "I will not die," she repeated. "Consider yourselves lucky you won't be leading another eighteen-year-old to some 'accident.'"

She would _not_ sacrifice her life, the same life she'd learned to cling to when her mother's was taken so suddenly. She would _not_ put off her desire to have children. She needed someone to teach about getting through the horrors of life. Someone who would listen. Someone who would then live life almost painlessly and far, far safer. Someone who would know the best life she ever would on Earth, because she would never be left wanting.

At least one person in the world Jamila would know for sure did not live the life she had.

Preferably three, two boys and a girl.

Which in a way didn't make sense, since she wanted the little girl most of all.

"I will live," she repeated firmly. "When I die, I will die by my own debts and mine alone." Her voice softened, and her eyes traveled far. "If I am destined for this, I am also destined to outlive it."

Satisfied by this, the three women finally left without waiting for a goodbye.

Alone, Jamila was just eighteen again.

And her eyes filled with tears.

"Who did you love more, _Ommi_?" Jamila asked through gritted teeth. "Your great however-many grandmother, or your daughter?"

For every fallen tear she made a bitter promise to herself. University. A husband. A daughter. Her brother reincarnate in a son.

Her cheeks became wet.

Maybe, someday, a real life.

**I've fallen quickly in love with Mariah Carey's "Hero" while writing this****. (Also the second movement of Beethoven's 7th and Adagio in G minor for anyone who's curious****, but that's nothing new to me****.) Taking a leaf from the song:**

**This story is not about loss****. It's about gain****. Empowerment****. ****Surviving has never been easy. A lot of the time, especially in dealing with traumatic events, survival is a choice. And I'd like to dedicate this story to anyone, everyone, for whom survival has ever been a choice. There is a Jamila in each of us.**

**Anyway-general notes:**

**Title taken from a decipherable quote in TMB****.**** This should've been up months ago. I apologize. Anyway, it's a piece I've wanted to finish for a while. It's been a while since I've written something visceral and (hopefully) wrenching. Not trying to ruin anybody's days, but this is how it probably went down with Jamila's pals from the Order.**

**Apparently women in Cairo do stay with their families until they're married, even if they're attending college.** **Read it during the research period for this story. Other than that, I know nothing about growing up in Cairo****. Nothing****. Since it's an urban environment****, Jamila might have a bit more progressive of an upbringing-so I went with that****.**

**Regarding Jamila's voice-I tried to go for the same dry voice except a little less mature****, something one can expect more from a teenage girl****.****.****. especially before she is saddled with the business of the Order****. Hope that she sounded IC****.**

**As for Jamila being so sullen and defiant-I worked from her disgust in the line "One day I will have a daughter, and she will never receive such a letter." (Fun fact-the original title I wanted for this was "Such A Letter.) This indicates that receiving the letter was a horrible ordeal for her. She might be a little more anti-Order here than some people picture, but I never got the feeling that she liked looking for Nefertari. She seemed to want to get it done and move on with her life. And her resentment at the experience of getting that letter from her mother might bleed into her feelings towards the affiliation that destined her to be killed.**


End file.
